Submitted photo / Pamela Springsteen Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brandy Clark performs Saturday at Ford Family Recital Hall.

One of the 30 greatest living American songwriters will perform Saturday at DeYor Performing Arts Center’s Ford Family Recital Hall.

That’s the list the New York Times included Brandy Clark on last month along with her frequent songwriters partners Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. Her prestigious company includes Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Carole King and two of Clark’s idols, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson.

“When I got the call about that, I thought they were calling to interview me about Shane McAnally, who I was on that list with,” Clark said during a telephone interview. “I was like, ‘Well, of course, I’ll talk about Shane,’ and then my publicist said, ‘No, you’re on this list.’ I was just blown out of my mind … It is something that makes me want to spend the rest of my career proving I deserve to be on that list, because so many of my heroes are on that list.

“I’m always needing a new challenge and a new mountain to climb and a reason to keep writing songs. I’ve written songs for a long time, and you can feel like, ‘Man, do I have anything else to say,’ so it makes me want to keep striving.”

Clark has co-written hits for Kacey Musgraves (“Follow Your Arrow”), Miranda Lambert (“Mama’s Broken Heart”) and The Band Perry (“Better Dig Two’) and her songs have been recorded by a diverse list of artists, including Reba McEntire, Sheryl Crow, Kenny Rogers, LeAnn Rimes, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, Jennifer Nettles and Ben Platt.

McAnally and Osborne aren’t Clark’s only collaborators. Most Nashville songwriters aren’t monogamous when it comes to writing partners, and Clark’s list includes Liberty native and Youngstown State University graduate Bob DiPiero, with whom she wrote “Drunk Americans” (recorded by Toby Keith) and “Burnin’ Bed” (recorded by David Nail).

“Anytime I see him, I learn something, and I light up, because he’s so funny,” Clark said. “I think he’s really good at remembering that this is just music, after all, and that we should have fun while we’re creating it. That is what I always feel from him.”

Clark remembered one songwriting session with DiPiero when she prefaced what she was about to say with, “This might be stupid …” DiPiero stopped her and held his thumb and index finger about a quarter-inch apart.

“He goes, ‘There’s this much difference between really stupid and a quarter of a million dollars,'” she said.

Since 2013 Clark has been nominated for 17 Grammys, and in 2023 she became a Tony nominee for writing the score and the lyrics (with McAnally) for musical “Shucked.” Most of her Grammy nominations are in songwriting categories, but her one win is for best Americana performance in 2024 for “Dear Insecurity,” a duet with Brandi Carlile that Clark recorded for her self-titled album.

Clark co-wrote “Dear Insecurity” with Michael Pollack, but Carlile — who also produced the album — encouraged Clark to rework portions of the songs to make it more personal.

“He and I wrote that together, and we put a lot of ourselves, both of ourselves, in it,” Clark said. “He was OK with it when Brandi said, ‘This needs to be all your insecurities.’ He was so OK with me going in and changing those lyrics. There were some things in there that were more masculine, and so it became all feminine.”

Pollack and Clark also worked together on “American Roots,” which will be Clark’s next album and is likely to be in the setlist for the Youngstown show.

“I started doing it last summer, and I didn’t realize the power in that song until I played it live the first time,” she said. “I’ve never had a song that has gotten that sort of reaction that wasn’t a hit, that people didn’t (already) know. The first time I played it, it got a standing ovation in the middle of the set. I think it’s a very timely song, and I also think it’s a timeless song, and it resonated in a way I didn’t know it would.”

The next album is in the final mixing and mastering stages and will be released in early 2027. It was produced by Shooter Jennings. While most country artists use session players when recording, Clark had her touring band with her in the studio.

Their familiarity with the songs made the recording process go faster. The only downside was it left her with too many songs from which to choose.

“We ended up recording 21 songs, and I’m not a fan of a double album, so probably the hardest part was whittling it down to 11 songs,” Clark said. “Those other 10 songs will find their way into the world. I don’t know if it’ll be on the next record or as additional content, but that’s how it came about. And I’m really proud of it. I can’t wait to get it out in the world. Every night in our set, we do five songs off of that record.”

Expect to hear some of the songs made famous by others as well.

“We’ve been doing ‘Follow Your Arrow,’ which I wrote with Kacey Musgraves, and she made popular. My guitar player, Gabe Burdulis, asked if we could do that song, and he had an idea for it. We started out a capella with he and myself and Amanda McCoy, who also plays bass, just singing the chorus. I’ve had a lot of people say to me, ‘Oh my God, I love the way you guys do ‘Follow Your Arrow.'”

If you go …

WHO: Brandy Clark

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Ford Family Recital Hall, DeYor Performing Arts Center, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $38.90 to $64.15 and are available at the DeYor box office and through Ticketmaster.